Only written language leaves traces that are documented. And only when it is written on a material that has withstood time. Writings on organic materials, such as bark, have mostly been lost, while texts on stone or clay have sometimes been preserved for thousands of years. Whether we are even able to read and understand them today is another matter.
Accumulated knowledge can be quickly lost, for example due to outdated recording methods that no one uses anymore.
Information on a floppy disk or a disc remains useless when there is no appropriate equipment to listen to it. Added to this is the fact that language and writing are constantly evolving, so that even the information in a book – which can still be opened – becomes incomprehensible. It is almost impossible to access information that is not written anywhere and has been preserved for posterity. That is why it is so difficult to answer the question of which is the oldest language in the world. Languages can be transmitted from generation to generation for centuries, but they fall into oblivion if they have not left a written trace.
Only written language leaves traces that are documented. And only when it is written on a material that has withstood time. Writings on organic materials, such as bark, have mostly been lost, while texts on stone or clay have sometimes been preserved for thousands of years. Whether we are even able to read and understand them today is another matter.
OLDEST WRITTEN EVIDENCE
The oldest written language documents are cuneiform scripts, in which wedge-shaped signs were impressed on soft clay tablets. The oldest known cuneiform scripts are from the Sumerians, who developed from the fourth century BC in Mesopotamia, in the “territory between the rivers” Euphrates and Tigris (in modern-day Iraq). The texts date from around 3.200 BC. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the best-known work of the Sumerian language. Cuneiform languages have also been crucial for the later development of European writing.
Almost as old are the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were written in the tomb of Pharaoh Seth-Peribsen, 2775-2650 BC, thus being preserved for posterity.
The sentence found there: “He united the two lands for his son, the double king Peribsen” is considered by experts to be the earliest fully written sentence. The writing has been preserved, but we can only imagine what the oldest written languages, Sumerian, Akkadian and the language of ancient Egypt, sounded like. Because all three languages are extinct, they are no longer used and have no living descendants.
LANGUAGE DIVERSITY AROUND THE WORLD
There are 7.100 languages in the world today, of which 40% are at risk of extinction. Some languages are spoken by fewer than 1.000 people and are at risk of becoming extinct within a few generations. This would mean the loss of an essential part of cultural identity. On the other hand, there are 23 languages that are spoken by more than half of the world’s population.
The ten most spoken languages in the world are English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, French, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, and Urdu. German is in twelfth place. While the oldest written languages have disappeared, some very old languages still live on today, such as Tamil, which is considered by many linguists to be the oldest language in use. Tamil is one of the 22 official languages of India and is spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka by about 85 million people. The earliest Tamil writings date back to the 5th century BCE.
However, analysis of the Tolkāppiyam, a grammatical text in the Tamil language, suggests that the Tamil language must be at least 5.000 years old, but is hardly spoken today. The oldest records in Sanskrit exist for more than 3000 years, are Hindu texts compiled between 1.500 and 1.200 BCE written as the Vedas, collections of religious texts.
It has been primarily a scholarly language, used in ancient Indian texts, religious writings, and literary works. However, many modern languages of India and Regional dialects have their origins in Sanskrit. Chinese is one of the oldest continuously spoken languages in the world, spoken by more than a billion people today. The language’s roots can be traced back thousands of years. It is thought to have evolved about 4.500 years ago from Proto-Sino-Tibetan, which is considered the ancestor of the Burmese and Tibetan languages.
The oldest finds of written Chinese are considered inscriptions on turtle shells and animal bones, which are about 3.300 years old.
Among the oldest languages still spoken are Hebrew and Arabic. The linguistic roots of these two Afro-Asiatic languages go back 10.000 to 20.000 years, although the earliest written finds of these two languages date back “only” about 3000 years.
WAS THERE A FIRST COMMON LANGUAGE?
Although no written evidence can be found, humans have had complex communication systems that have allowed them to communicate for thousands of years. There are various linguistic theories about the origin of human language, but none of them is fully proven. Human language may have arisen from a combination of factors, including complex brain development, social interaction, and the need for cooperation in hunting and gathering food.
Language may have evolved over time from a combination of hand gestures and body movements. There is also the theory that there once existed a so-called “protolanguage,” a common prehistoric language from which all modern languages have descended over time. However, there is no sufficient evidence that such a common universal language ever existed.
DIVERSITY THROUGH ISOLATION AND MIGRATION
It is more likely that prehistoric societies had many different Regional languages and dialects, similar to today. The diversity of human languages developed over time through geographic isolation, cultural exchange, and migration.
When groups of people were separated and exposed to different environments, their languages developed independently of each other. This led to the creation of the multitude of languages we have today. (DW)